Wireless provider loses service in afternoon

July 12, 2013

CMI staff

What Plateau described as a system-wide failure left the company’s many Eastern New Mexico customers without wireless service for about three hours Friday.

Chief Operating Officer Vince Tyson said the wireless outage from 12:50 p.m. to 3:55 p.m. was caused by a core element — a specialized processing computer in the network — that failed. Tyson said a redundant back-up element also failed. He said the back-up failure was not supposed to happen.

Tyson said he plans to meet with manufacturers of the elements to determine the root cause of the network failure, and put protective measures in place so it does not happen again.

Tyson declined to say how many customers were affected by the wireless outage, saying competitors could use the information to their advantage.

Doug Robinson, chief financial officer at Plateau, said engineers worked diligently throughout the outage.